How we Organize and use our Garage

About five years ago we move to our current house, and being parents of a dozen, being on an acre lot was a must. We used to live on a quarter of an acre lot and we really wanted the kids to have more room to run around and play. Another amenity to this house is that it has a three car garage with a ample storage cabinets. These are some of the awesome cabinets that came in the garage. Here is the one side of the garage that we put two of our vehicles. (When there is nothing in the way.) We did paint all the cabinets, epoxyed the floor, and painted the walls, which all help to give the garage a finished look. We even added baseboards to finish it off. You could see the rods with the hangers on them, ready for my next garage sale. We just drop them down, and they are ready to go.Here is the other side of the garage, as you could see it also has plenty of cabinets. These are filled with all kinds of things like camping gear, additional sporting equipment, and other items.This is how we hang the scooters. I don’t know why the kids can’t put them back when they are done. They always seem to end up on the ground right by the door.We stack all of our outdoor patio cushions on top of some storage bins when they are not in use.This is the other side of the garage. It’s almost a must to have a 3 car garage when you have an acre lot, because you need to have room for your trackers. We also use it for all of our bikes, other toys and yard supplies. We utilizes the ceiling as well. We hang extra bikes, hockey nets, baseball net, and our fertilizer spreader. You could see all the hockey sticks in the back. I think we supply the whole neighborhood with sticks. The kids really like to play street hockey. Here is one of the cabinets that we added doors to and what we call our shed. It holds all of our rakes, shovels and other miscellaneous yard tools.Here is another cabinet that we use for all kinds of small outdoor toys. This is in dire need of a good going through and reorganization. The little ones usually don’t get put the toys back where they belong. I found these crates to help with my organizing. The kids could see what’s in them, they are light enough to carry out to the yard and if someone should happen to leave them out and it rains, (Which would never happen at our house. lol) the water drains out.Do you think we have enough hockey sticks and baseball bats?We use a bike rack to try and keep the bikes organized. Another look! We use bins with labels for the different types of balls. With 8 boys and a hubby that loves sports it’s a must!!!We use sheets to hide all of our junk things when we have people over. We use an old gas pipe that we had, and a dowel rod. (A conduit rod would work well.) We use our garage as extra outdoor space to entertain in when we have large crowds over. When they are not being used we wrap the sheets over the top of the bars. Here we are in our garage when we had a party last fall. (I was pregnant here.)This time we used the whole garage. (We took the mower, the trailer filled with junk things, and bikes, to a neighbor’s garage.) We also hid several of the bins and other toys under the tables hidden with the table cloths.We even decorated the tables for the season using several items from our garden.One last look at our garage!
Do you use your garage for entertaining?
How do you organize your garage?Parents of a Dozen

3 comments:

Thanks! Great post. . .I'm trying to convince my family that it would be a good idea to paint the garage. . .we drive into it every day and I think it would give it such a "finished" look. Our builder polished the floor for us right before we moved in an I can't believe what a difference that made :) Love the cabinets. . .they are so incredibly handy to have. Always love seeing how you organize things for your large family.

Your garage is very big - it's almost enough to rent out to another family! But what's more amazing is how you managed to organize all those things. Most people would just tuck an object in a corner, and wait for the dust to settle and hide it.